Medill spotlights local news collapse: As newsroom jobs disappear, writes Mark Jacob, some areas of the country are virtually uncovered by journalism and plagues all news consumers with more superficiality and mistakes.

“Which means there’s plenty to read and view, but it might not tell us very much,” he writes on the local news crisis as part of the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Youths are best at telling fact from opinion: A Pew Research Center news analysis finds younger Americans are better than elders at separating factual statements in the news from opinion.

“This stronger ability to classify statements regardless of their ideological appeals may well be tied to the fact that younger adults — especially Millennials — are less likely to strongly identify with either political party,” write Jeffrey Gottfried and Elizabeth Greico.

“Younger Americans also are more ‘digitally savvy’ than their elders, a characteristic that is also tied to greater success at classifying news statements.”

NBC-affiliate KTTC news director says staff members are forbidden to cover stories while wearing political campaign attire. The Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics says journalists should act independently and avoid conflicts of interest.

Media trust down, can be restored for some: Gallup and the Knight Foundation release new findings.

“These results indicate that attempts to restore trust in the media among most Americans may be fruitful, particularly if those efforts are aimed at improving accuracy, enhancing transparency and reducing bias,” they report.

About one-third of those on the political right have lost faith in the media and expect that to be permanent.

Journalists are not the enemy: The Boston Globe’s editorial board publishes its response to President Trump’s attack on the media.

More than 350 news outlets joined the Globe’s move to support a free press.

“A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press,” writes the Globe. “Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather ‘the enemy of the people.’ This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences.”

More on covering hate: Amanda Darrach finds a culture gap between young technology reporters who think trolling rhetoric is funny, while older reporters take it “totally seriously.”

“Our system is geared towards media manipulation on a massive scale,” she writes. “There are a lot of reasons why we’re in the mess that we’re in. Some of it has to do with reporters making bad choices, but the system is just set up to be manipulated.”

Bottom line: “It’s our job to document the human condition, and that includes the ugly parts.”